


The Jar of Prompts and Musings

by bodtlings



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M, One Shot Collection, Polyamory, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:27:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3757882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodtlings/pseuds/bodtlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of prompts based off of ones I have in a prompt jar, solely for my three favorite boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scintillescent

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/bodtlings) // [tumblr](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> scintillescent: twinkling

Jean isn’t really a fan of crowds; it’s stuffy, you’re packed so close together it resembles the inside of a sardine can, and the inability of free movement sets him on edge. It’s not claustrophobia; it’s more impatience and irrational anger towards a large gathering than a fear of being boxed in.

It’s a shame, because while he doesn’t particularly like the congregation of a mass amount of bodies, he enjoys the beach. Sat under an umbrella with a book in his hand, a beer in the other and Marco’s portable black radio turned down low with soft music is one of the best situations for Jean to ever be in. Marco usually tans next to him, spread out on his stomach on a towel, while Eren makes sand castles and knocks them down with stomps of his feet. He gets sand over the giant bed sheet they bring to put their bags on and lay on together, but none of them really mind if it means Eren will wear that smile on his face.

And it’s nice, because when the sun begins to descend and the bodies begin to retreat back to their homes, the three of them are left with nothing but the sand, the ocean, and each other as company. It’s become something of a ritual for them to walk along the water’s edge at their own pace, collecting beach glass and beautiful shells as they go with their hands linked. Hair a matted, salted mess in knots that take forever to untangle is worth the deep sleep they fall into back in bed, with legs that tie similar knots like the strands of their hair that are equally as difficult to unweave.

It’s not often that the three visit the beach during the day because of Jean’s unpleasant viewpoint on crowds of mass proportions, so they usually visit at night. The gates are locked and there is no life guard on duty, but breaking the rules here and there and hopping a fence or three never got them hurt.

So they go. On a warm summer night in mid-July, they go. 

The sun has already bid farewell to their side of the planet, the only source of illumination two shoddy lights attached to the lifeguard station and the moon. Eren carries their bed sheet under his right arm, Marco a six pack, and Jean an empty jar.

The quietness of the beach is something that will never fail to make Jean’s heart feel so at peace, the steady waves the only interruption that’s more like a greeting that slows down his pulse to a steady rhythm. 

Eren spreads out the bed sheet with the help of Marco, and Jean would lend a hand if he could stop staring at the ocean. He didn’t realize it was a full moon tonight, and the light refracts like diamonds off the twinkling ripples. It’s so calm, the back and forth, back and forth easy motion of the tides saying hello every time they reach the edge of the sand. His breathing syncs with the waves and he feels like he’s home.

They don’t need to talk; they rarely do when they make their late-night escapades to the shore, and it’s comforting. A simple gesture, a rubbing of thumbs on sore knuckles, a head on a shoulder - they don’t need anything else. Speech has been surpassed, and all that exists is ease. 

Jean watches the shimmering light that dances a dance he doesn’t know on top of waves that will never be formed quite the same way ever again. He hears Eren’s deep breathing, feels Marco rub between his shoulder blades, inhales the salty spray and embraces the warmth from the sand of a sunny day beneath the blanket.

And he is home.


	2. "Bloodlike, some few drops of rain"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> titled from robert browning's poem [a serenade at the villa](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175586)  
> prompts from twitsquad, thanks guys!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/bodtlings) // [tumblr](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/)

_“All was well.”_

     It is no easy task to be content in everything you are, everything you are surrounded by. It’s even harder to wake up, to drag your feet through the mud and pools of water that try to wrap around your limbs and prevent you from progression. It is difficult when you have to find the smallest of reasons for motivation, your one small ray of hope on a cast-over day that will allow you to place your feet on the ground and push through.

     Sometimes, all you need is a hand to hold and a smile to wake up to, and when Eren wakes up to a smile that rivals the sun and a hand the physical embodiment of relief, he knows he will be okay and the day won’t be as bad as it seems. All will be well, and it’s becoming easier to believe.

 

// § //

 

_“If being afraid is a crime, we hang side by side.”_

     No one is at fault for fearing. Fear is one of the most prominent emotions with the strongest reactions, and sometimes, people can do nothing but succumb.

     Shotgun shells sliding into waiting mouths, swords held across forsaken necks, limbs that hang in a Titan’s grip that have long since forfeited their fight; these have become common, almost routine. The brave have only masked their cowardice. Everyone is afraid.

     Captains, comrades, all of your fellow soldiers - they are afraid. Some are just better at admitting it than others.

 

// § //

 

_aphelion: the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is furthest from the sun._

     Oh is it hard to pine, to gather up the spilled affections your heart pours through threaded fingers and open lips. It is a crime to contain, but a greater crime to pine for something so far out of reach.

     Oh is it hard to pine for the two you will never have. Eren tapes his heart back together in the hopes that the shattered fragments of his devotion to his Sun and his Moon don’t scorch him until he is too far burned for healing.

     Oh is it hard to pine, and he is already burned.

 

// § //

 

_“even if you shine the light into the mirror, you won’t see me any clearer”_

     Exposure is not exposure unless it is in the truest of forms. A cover is just that - the first layer, the top sheet that shields the underlying ugly truths no one wants to witness or admit. Mirrors are reflective, not an invasion, and no matter the amount of light, no matter the strength of its burning luminescence, no matter the raw energy that streams through dust particles and regrets, it will not peel away the cover.

     You can stare and pry at the edges with bleeding fingers and cracked nails, but it does not guarantee entry. Even if it does, what you see might not always be what you were hoping for.

     Jean stopped trying with Eren a long time ago.

 

// § //

 

_“I’m stronger than my fears, and braver than my doubts.”_

bold sentiments and blood-like drops of rain  
patter against my fragile heart and chain  
me to a wicked belief that i will fall  
i will miss the call  
of my lovers and give in to  
a feigned sense of bravery you  
taught me to harbor.  
  
it’s warm where you are, warm enough  
to bleed through the tough  
exterior i’ve cast. it seeps  
through my skin, wraps around and creeps  
into my bloodstream to make home in my bones   
and hardens like stones  
that settle into the crevices of my humanism.  
  
i have come to believe with your words  
and your love, that i am bigger than a bird’s  
wings that soar at altitudes i cannot seize   
but have no desire to. squeeze  
all the love i have in my heart and make sure  
that i remind you both that my love, as pure  
as grains of sugar on your tongue that melt   
faster than my speech flows free,  
that i am strong, and it comes in three.


	3. Extirpate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> extirpate: to get rid of; to terminate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/bodtlings) // [tumblr](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/)

It’s been weeks of listening to the scratches in the floorboards and the groaning of wood that needs replacing. It’s been weeks of plotting and planning and preparing, but no matter how Marco comes up with his extermination plan, it just falls through.

He’s starting to become more than irritated, snapping at fridge doors and shower handles and cabinets when he even thinks about how they’re still around and just won’t get the hell away from him. He needs to do something, and he needs to do it before they ruin everything.

It’s been weeks, _weeks_ , and Marco still hasn’t found a way to get the fucking mice out of their apartment.

The first discovery of their rodent friends involved Jean, unfortunately. An event for newly published authors looking to “get on the grid” was held at the publishing house, as if it wasn’t enough that Jean had two manuscripts that needed intense remodeling in plot structure and character analysis and another that required more grammar fixes than the work of a five-year-old. It was a busy, busy day, and Jean was sure that he wouldn’t make it to the couch, falling asleep to floating images of prepositions and why the oxford comma was so important (so, so important).

When he came home that night, the ungodly hour of 2AM blaring from his phone thanks to the delays at Penn Station, Jean only had enough energy to make it to the couch, if barely. He had dropped his suitcase on the coffee table, draped his jacket over the back cushions, and fell onto the too-tiny love seat entirely unsuitable for his gangly figure. He was out in a few seconds, and was soon dreaming of strolling in a park with Robert Browning as he discussed the composition of his latest poem “My Last Duchess.”

About two hours later, Jean is rudely awoken - not with a jump and not with a start, but with a squeak and a weight sitting on his chest.

A tan, almost chirpy mouse perched atop Jean’s chest said it’s nightly greetings as it munched on a popcorn kernel that must’ve fallen out of the bowl from their movie night the day before.

Needless to say, Jean’s reaction to the cute critter was to promptly scream like a girl on fire at the top of his lungs and cause Marco to run into the living room, pants half on and baseball bat at the ready to whoop some ass. Eren was a little slower, bed head going five miles in every direction, scratching through the thick happy trail underneath his t-shirt and, “The fuck you screamin’ for, you dyin’ ‘r somethin’?”

The poor mouse ran away and escaped the grasps of the trio, another night to live unintentionally granted.

From that night on, Marco has been trying desperately to catch what he believes to be five other mice in the walls of their creaky apartment. He tries mouse traps, cheese, glue, spackling holes wherever and whenever he finds them. Of course, the little deviants journey their way around everything and decide that since Eren, Jean, and Marco know of their presence, why not make a little noise instead of hiding?

“Aw, don’t try ‘n kill ‘em, they’re real cute! We should keep one.”

“I want them out of here Marco, make it happen.”

“How about we get ride of them, but not kill them?”

Marco was the only compromising factor on the Curious Mouse Scenario, and eventually called in an exterminator to help their problem, even if their wallets were heavily protesting.

The family of mice are gone, but every now and then, Marco _swears_ he hears the pitter-patter of little mice feet in the ceiling.


	4. Querencia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> querencia: where one feels at home ; the place where you are your most authentic self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heavily influenced by [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byHSQoemFvI) song.
> 
> also very general mentions of near-drowning/self harm/alcoholism.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/bodtlings) // [tumblr](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/)

“Home” is a scary word.

“Home” has a lot attached to it, and for some people who have no attachment to things, to people, it’s even scarier, because that means you’ve settled into the heart of someone who could leave you, someone who could taint that image of home, who could take it with them. “Home” is not always white picket fences and a family to come back to after a long day of work. “Home” is not always happy, not always fireplaces and where your rest your head at night and where you live, necessarily.

“Home” is a person, a song, a secret place. “Home” is where you feel like you belong, like you could unfurl your dark corners and uncurl your anxious toes and breathe that sigh of relief that lets you know you’re safe. “Home” is full of laughter, of warmth in the form of a nestled weight in your chest that speaks not of hardship and gravity, but of comfort, ease, peace. It is a melody wrapped around you like a blanket, a hand on the small of your back that is reassurance, a picture so beautifully painted it questions the realism that it is by nature.

“Home” for Eren, Jean, and Marco comes in the form of a person, and that person becomes three, and those three are each other.

Marco has perfected the art of “angel,” has mastered the social persona and the smiley face and the good-natured heart. It’s real and genuine, but to an extent, it’s tiring and exhausting to uphold. Marco is not perfect by any means - he is flawed in that he always seeks approval, always aims to please others before making sure he is at his best beforehand. Marco has, over the years, unintentionally forgotten what it means to give time for yourself, to please yourself, to take care of yourself. He forgets to eat, his sleeping patterns are all off and he has brief bouts of anger over being tired, so tired, of being seen as an angel when he knows he is anything but. He is selfish and spider cracked and before Jean, before Eren, his only home was at the bottom of his bathtub.

Eren is the epitome of “disappointment” in the eyes of nearly everyone he knows - he dropped out of college two months before he graduated because he was hit with the realization that biochemical engineering was more his father’s dream than his, and left to pursue his own interests. More than anything - more than he wanted his mother to stop ignoring his text messages and his father to acknowledge his existence - Eren wanted to pursue theatre. He wanted to be under the spotlight, singing to his heart’s content in a musical he knew by heart at the time of auditions with a group he knows loves the arts as much as him. It’s his passion, but it’s a little hard when you have no support, realize that you wasted your years over biochemical reactors and textbooks you had no interest in and gave up studying for the sake of singing along to Rent. Eren came to adopt his parents’ view of him (worthless, a waste, not good enough), and his only home was at the bottom of a bottle.

Jean was always “that quiet kid.” It was rare he spoke up because of his slight speech impediment, rare he made a friend, and rare he found solace in anything not related to a book. He grew up hearing, “You’re such a bright boy, Jean, but you need to open up” and “If only you would let us in, we could help you” in varieties too numerous to line up. He was alone, isolated in groups, he his only friend. His parents put him through therapy, countless hours of observation and medication unjustly and inaccurately prescribed because the doctors didn’t know how to treat him if he wouldn’t speak. Eventually, everyone stopped trying, and Jean only further curled in on himself, Oscar Wilde and Robert Browning and the many authors of poems and novels and short stories his only understanding and unquestioning companions. Everyone gave up on him before he could peek through his introverted windows to see the outside, and his only home was hidden at the bottom of his bathroom sink.

They met by chance.

Eren met Jean first, on a dark green metallic bench in the middle of Bryant Park mid-Spring. Despite Eren’s history, he’s a really outgoing person, all shining enthusiasm and deadbolt determination, and when he sees a lanky Jean pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, he has to make conversation.

So he does.

He sits himself right next to him and looks right over his shoulder at the page he’s reading. It’s only the beginning, right when the painting is being created and you can practically feel Dorian’s soul being won over by the canvas, and Eren smiles.

“I never liked not having a solid figure he practically sells his soul to. A painting is a weird soul-binder, don’t you think?”

Jean says nothing. He waits and he waits and he waits for this man to go away, but he refuses to budge.

Eren talks to him, or rather talks to himself because of a lack of response. He doesn’t mind so much though; this was the first novel-turned-play he watched at his university freshman year, and Eren has grown quite fond of it. He leaves two hours later and cheerily bids his mime-silent temporary companion farewell.

Jean only gives the smallest of waves ten minutes after he left.

 

* * *

 

It repeats. Over the course of two weeks, it repeats. Day after day Jean sits on the same bench in the same park and Eren finds him at the same time. Jean doesn’t speak until the end of the third week, and even then, all he says is “hello” when Eren takes his seat.

Eren beams. Jean goes back to reading.

 

* * *

 

Another two weeks and summer is ferocious in it’s rays, cooking all victims’ skin to a bright pink that positively burns later on, like the Sun has decided to take extensive residence on arms and legs and noses as a reminder of their lack of protection throughout the day.

Eren goes to find his literature boy on their usual bench, but comes up empty. He checks his phone, and sees that it’s their normal time. He checks the bench again, and sees there’s no boy. He looks around and around and around like the carousel on the other side of the park and comes up empty.

“I’m uhm, I’m over here.”

Eren turns, and there is his literature boy, black-framed glasses and all, but in a bench under the shade of a tree. He smiles and sits down, noticing Dorian Gray is finished, and in its wake, a collection of Robert Browning’s poems. Eren is unfamiliar.

“I’ve never heard of him. He any good?”

Jean gives him this wide-eyed look, the one that says, “how dare you not know one of the greatest Victorian poets who ever existed,” and looks back down to the page.

He clears his throat. “The best.”

As Eren sits down, Jean moves to sit a little bit closer to him to allow him to read along Porphyria’s Lover, and the two sit in silence for a time while Eren reads. Eren breaks the silence with loud bursts of shock at the man’s treatment of his lover, and it causes Jean to chuckle.

Eren is amazed - weeks spent with this man and this is the most he’s heard him talk, and he earned a chuckle.

They move through the poem, and while Eren isn’t exactly the best at poetry, Jean points to notes he’s scribbled for every line - his analysis, his references, his thoughts. There’s a giant question mark at the end of the poem written in pencil, and Eren makes a questioning face to match.

Jean just shrugs and wonders if, by the end of the summer, he’ll have the courage to tell Eren about that question mark.

 

* * *

 

Their two hours are up. Eren slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and waves farewell. He turns, he’s got one foot on the steps, ready to make his way to Penn Station when -

“Hey.” It’s small, afraid, unsure.

He twists his body back around and sees Jean is standing, one foot in front of the other and a hand outstretched, eyebrows scrunched in the middle. He pulls his hand back and stands on equal footing, his long fingers wrapping around the slim circumference of his bicep.

“I, uhm. I never g-got your name.”

Eren grips around the metal buckle of his bag strap and swallows. “Eren. Eren Jaeger. Like the drink.”

Jean nods, confirming the information he’s been given and sits back on the bench. Eren goes to step down another step when he hears a much quieter, “Jean. My name i-is Jean. Kirschtein. With… a K.”

Eren smiles wide, wide like the expanse of the park and bright like the Sun stains on the apples of his cheeks. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

Eren gives a two finger salute and bounces down the stairs.

For once, the rattle of the trains and the lull of metal wheels on electric tracks doesn’t calm his pulse; his heart is beating much too quickly.

 

* * *

  

They meet Marco last.

New York City is famous for events sponsored by big-time companies, and during the summer on every Monday night, HBO holds an event. They erect a blow-up movie screen and play a movie free of charge for anyone who wants to come. People line up hours before, blankets and chairs and coolers in hand, so that when the horn goes off, they all run to grab the best spot on the patches of grass warmed by the day’s rays. It’s nice to watch, if not for the few laughs it gives.

Marco works at one of the snack booths. There are tents set up all around the parks, supplying popcorn and ice cold bottles of water and ice cream for people who didn’t bring their own.

Jean and Eren are not on the grass in front of the film because Jean is not entirely comfortable enough to be in such a trampling crowd of movie-goers, and the rigidity of his muscles, the taut line of his lips pressed together at the ever-growing long line of people waiting to get a seat tells Eren of Jean’s unease more than words probably could.

They stay on their bench and further discuss Porphyria’s Lover, even though it’s more of Eren thinking out loud and Jean offering small gestures of affirmation and pointing to certain notes he’s scrawled that Eren hasn’t noticed.

Eren is engrossed. He always had an indifference to poetry, never really understanding or wanting to understand, but with Jean’s notes and his small bits of speech, it clicks more than it did in required english classes and high school torture lessons. He enjoys it. He enjoys it with Jean.

As much as he is interested, he also has the munchies, and one of the tents selling popcorn and bottled soda is calling his attention and his stomach. He’s ninety-percent sure he’d focus more if he had a snack in his system, and preferably one that is salty and crunchy.

“Do you want?” Eren points to the tent, and after Jean gives him two dollars for a bottle of water, Eren says he’ll be right back and makes way for the popcorn.

“Hey! What can I get you?”

He’s peppered in the freckled kisses of the divine and as luminescent as if he were the Sun’s child.

He’s beautiful.

Jean is beautiful in his own quirks and habits, Eren knows, but this man is beautiful in his natural charm.

“Uhm,” Eren mumbles, momentarily forgetting his order and remembering as soon as the guy offers him a small smile. “Yeah can I have a large popcorn please? And a cream soda. Oh and a bottle of water for my friend.”

“Sure thing.” He moves to get his order, and Eren notices that this Sun child has been kissed not only by heaven’s servants, but by his parental planet, gentle dustings of red on his nose and his ears like powder gracing his skin from a feather brush. He’s beautiful.

“Alrighty, it’s coming to seven-fifty,” and it’s expensive as hell, but Eren is far concerned with something else.

Eren hands him the money in exact change, and before he loses the will and the nerve, he says, “What time are you done here?”

He’s startled, hands in the register and eyebrows raised in surprise, but he smiles and closes the drawer. Why not. “Eight-thirty too late?”

“Let me go ask my friend. Hold that thought.”

Eren runs back to Jean, who’s head is resting against the back of the metal bench and his eyes closed, face to the sky. He almost doesn’t want to disturb him, but Eren gently places a hand on his shoulder. Jean jumps to attention, heart racing and automatically shrinking into the bars of the bench, but he relaxes considerably when he realizes it’s just Eren. He wonders when it became “just Eren.”

“Hey, would it be okay if the guy I just met at the tent sits with us for a little while later? He said he gets off at eight-thirty.”

Jean is not prone to interacting with new people. New people scare him, people in general scare him, but that sweet crinkle to Eren’s eyes and the hopeful smile and that warmth radiating off his tanned skin is too inviting, too pretty to deny.

Jean shakes his head, gives him the absolute smallest of smiles he can muster, and a minimal nod of his head.

Eren runs back to the tent, giving a thumbs up to the boy and shakes his head in what Jean assumes to be a formal introduction.

 

* * *

 

Tents begin to close, the crowd begins to dissipate, and soon, there are only a few people in the park by the time the movie is over. Eren bought a blanket from a store down the block, and even though his nerves are on high alert and he’s not in his comfort zone at all, for the first time in such a long time, Jean lets himself experience something new again.

It seems being friends with Eren Jaeger means new experiences, and Jean doesn’t mind as much as he thought he would.

Jean is sitting cross-legged on the blanket, thick book in his lap and pushing up his glasses every ten seconds because they need to be tightened. Eren is on his back, ankles crossed in front of him and hand resting on the palms of his linked hands, looking up at the stars and wondering when things will be okay.

Marco runs over to them in his bright red work t-shirt and khakis, a grin on his face and a flush serving as a background to accentuate the smatter of freckles haphazardly painted on his skin.

“I’m here! I’m not late am I?”

“Right on time, Marco!”

Ah, so that’s his name. Eren sits up and leans on the heels of his hands, looking up at Marco with stars in his eyes, and this man who’s as bright as the Sun radiates heat. Eren is twinkling and Marco is shining and Jean feels like he’s out of orbit.

“Jean, this is Marco. Marco, my friend Jean.”

Jean stiffens. Jean feels his shoulders tense and his thighs clench and his eyes pinpoint their object of attention as the blade of grass leaning right onto the blanket instead of at this man’s face. He can’t bring himself to speak. He just nods his head and holds tighter to the worn edges of his book and hopes that Robert Browning will keep him safe. He doesn’t let the fact that Eren called him his friend go unnoticed.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Jean.”

It’s weird. Jean looks up at him and doesn’t see discomfort or confusion or even inquisition. He sees genuine smiles and Saturn’s rings dotting across his cheeks and down his neck, and he sees a normal guy, who is actually happy to meet him. He doesn’t look confused at the lack of speech or even eye contact, but the second Jean makes it, he’s being burned.

He’s beautiful.

Eren is beautiful too, but in a different way. Eren is strength in resolve, strength in boldness that isn’t cocky. Straightforward, considerate, perceptive, spontaneous in his actions but mindful of the other party. Eren is everything Jean isn’t, and he likes that.

As Marco sits on the blanket with them and talks about his day, who he is and how he’s glad to make new friends, Jean learns that he is incandescence in the truest of forms; he is the light filtering in the cracks and the steady inhale exhale of his lungs. He resembles the warmth, the potency of the Sun, but in small doses. He has the potential, but he lacks the incentive. Jean thinks he’s beautiful, too.

He doesn’t say much, lets Eren and Marco do about ninety-nine percent of the conversing, but he offers a word or two every now and then, happy that Eren has a talking partner in their meeting, for once.

They stay like that, sprawled in various positions on the blanket in a vacant Bryant Park between 40th and 41st Street in New York City, and it’s nice.

It’s nice.

 

* * *

 

They part ways at near midnight.

Eren tells Jean he’ll see him tomorrow, same time, same bench, and Marco says he’ll be around next week on Monday for the next movie night.

Marco tells them he’s glad he met them and they’re both really nice, and he’d like to meet with them again next week.

They both agree, Eren more verbally than Jean, but Jean does in his small waves and the first smile he’s worn all night.

Marco’s heart skips beats, he’s certain, because surely he just met with this literature Pluto and this O-type star.

He feels like writing poetry with veins set ablaze.

 

* * *

 

It becomes routine.

The course of the summer is Monday nights under the stars, with Eren’s literary boy and his Sun child, with his prose lines and Saturn speckles.

The more time they spend together, the more they get to know one another, and soon enough, one by one and at their own paces, they fall in love with each other. One by one, they stop looking up at the stars and start looking at the planets aligned on their blanket between stanzas and margin notes and in the middle of their own absorbed rays.

Marco is the first to fall. Marco falls down from space, down from the middle of the orbital fixation his parent planet eternally occupies and into the hearts of his poem and his melody. He finds home on a blanket in a park with two boys he feels like he just met but knew all along and who he feels could spend the rest of the summer, all of fall, the extensive winter nights, and the uncoiling of spring with.

Jean is next. Jean thinks he fell in love with Eren a long time ago, when he was teaching him the symbolism behind Porphyria’s blonde hair and blue eyes and what it meant to seal life with death in the form of eternal love. He’s already found home in losing himself in the magnetism of his stars and the folds of his heart that have taught him the beginnings of opening his hearted doors. Jean knows the ache in his cheek from lengthened laughter and the soreness of his core the next morning. It all started with Eren, and ended with adding Marco to the mix. He has found his Sun and his O-type star and he feels back in orbit.

Eren isn’t exactly last, but it just takes him longer to notice that his literary boy and his Sun child are more than what they read and more than how brightly they shine. He finds home in the guitar Marco brings, in the vibrations of his strings and the reverberation of his soul through his song. He finds home in Jean’s novel recommendations and his literature heart that has pages still unread and words still needing to be written. He knows it will take time, but there is more time than they realize, and he is okay.

The bottom of the bathtub becomes the Sun in the sky, the center of two boys who are more in love with him than they are with it’s luminescence.

The bottom of a bottle becomes the bluest and hottest star in the galaxy, the center of two boys who are more in love with him than they are with it’s gravitational color.

The bottom of the sink becomes the pages in a novel, the center of two boys who are more in love with him than they are with the unwritten verses and prose confessions.

Eren, Jean, and Marco spend the last night of summer on their blanket in their park under their stars and moons and fall into line next to each other, fingers linked and smiles no longer painted and a past they know will take time to heal, but came to terms with.

They spend the last night of summer whispering assured love. Jean is open, Marco is sincere, and Eren is musical.

They are home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which dani makes painfully obvious how much they love robert browning and oscar wilde


	5. The Cadence of Beating Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what this is but here u go 
> 
> twitter // tumblr

Eren sees them in a cafe one day. The man with paint-smattered freckles haphazardly strewn about his cheeks sips on something that could cause diabetes, and his companion across from him, porcelain-skinned and sharp features, nurses a darker roast. Eren’s eyes drift between their table and the grandfather clock that stands proud against the farthest wall of the cafe, the gears on display through scratched glass catching his eye. He watches them hold hands and laugh and the grooves of the gears in the clock match up with each new circulation. Eren watches the cadence of their beating hearts unintentionally synchronize with the smooth and easy cadence of the gears in the grandfather clock. They’re just a couple, just two people he doesn’t know and probably will never know, but he finds their connection intriguing, much like the chiming of the clock at noon every Thursday.

 

* * *

 

Eren sees them again on a street corner one day, coincidence at its finest. He taps at his phone, plays a game, scrolls through his music choices until he rips out his earbuds and gives up altogether when he can’t find something decent.

He sees them, the walking ray of sunshine eating a blueberry muffin and the mobile marble pushing up his frames higher on the bridge of his nose. Eren watches as the muffin man smiles, and the shiny marble cracks at the crevices and opens up to let in the warmth he emits. Eren realizes that they are not two people - they are one, and one they shall remain. The two men he has never formally met before in his entire lifetime walk to the same beat; they sing in harmony and their hearts pound together, never out of sync. Eren doesn’t know, but he knows. He just knows.

Eren watches as the two twine their pinkies and cross the street. They submerge into a sea of people, not even their heads a sign of them being afloat in the expanse of bodies. Eren’s phone rings, his alarm to remind him of his medication, and it blares at noon, just as it does everyday. Eren stares after them, even though they can’t be seen anymore, and he shuts the alarm a few minutes later.

 

* * *

 

By chance, they walk back in to the same cafe Eren had seen them in three weeks ago. He sits down at his table for one, a cup of black tea his only company, and he sees the small brushes of hands against shoulders, reluctance of unraveling their fingers as if they were unraveling their very essence. Eren doesn’t know this pull, doesn’t understand this constant coincidence that is turning into more than coincidence. Two men he has never met but always seems to run in to, does not know the names of. Eren doesn’t know what to do but run, just like he always has.

He throws out his tea and reminds himself that his heart beats to its own rhythm.

 

* * *

 

The last time he sees them, it’s 11:55am and Eren feels sick.

He roams the city with a hole in his chest wide enough to swallow the Pacific. He checked for fever, headache, and nausea that morning, but the result was inconclusive. A weighted hole made home on his ribcage, and he reminds himself of his strength and his rhythm, and he goes about his day.

The last time he sees them, the marble cracks. The porcelain skin is splattered with crimson, and the only color Eren will ever see behind his eyelids when he tries to fall asleep at night from then on is red red red.

People are shouting, car horns are blaring; it feels as if the asphalt beneath his thin-soled sneakers is rumbling, threatening to split and swallow him. But it doesn’t have to, because his holed ribs have already taken responsibility.

That freckled man, that beautiful, freckled sun child is not a sun, but a ray. He is the light desperately trying to feed its radiance through the quilted curtains to no avail and he is dimming as his sharp porcelain becomes a casket and hollow.

The car that swerved onto the sidewalk struck him. The car that swerved took a hammer to the statue and pummeled it beyond repair, dust and chunks of previous grace splayed across the black tile. The base of the statue lies next to the remains, the porcelain man’s glasses cracked, and never to be pushed up on his nose any longer.

Their cafe across the street has its doors open, and Eren hears the chime of the grandfather clock strike noon, only this time it's not comforting, it's a time of death.

Eren is amazed that the cadence of easy gears can continue without the cadence of beating hearts.


	6. an assisted healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from one to the other in mutual respect, understanding, and much love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a small poem that stemmed from my own heavy heart that i channeled into a prompt of sorts. enjoy :>

i've such a heavy heart  
oh won't you come and mend it?  
spider web cracks and fallen corners  
i wonder how it'll fit   
when it's sitting in your hands.   
i've such a heavy heart   
oh won't you come and hold it?   
give it love, give it warmth   
show it what it means to be lit   
by a fierce unyielding love.

i've such a heavy heart   
oh won't you come and see?   
i think i've learned now that it's okay,  
that i'm allowed to be   
a little broken.   
i've such a heavy heart   
oh won't you come and smile?   
it's because of you that it still beats   
oh say you'll stay a while.


	7. yarn’s best friend is a cup of tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yarn stores aren't typically places to meet damaged souls, but I guess it works out well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was exhausted at 2.30am and instead of sleeping i was writing, which is the natural thing to do when ur tired. 
> 
> i have a [tumblr](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/) and a [twitter](https://twitter.com/bodtlings)

Eren hates crying under lights.

Lights are exposure. Lights are vulnerability, bare, too revealing. The Dark has always been Eren’s friend, and in the Dark he prefers to let his secrets spill in the form of tears for his pillowcase to keep.

Lights are harsh, questioning, prying rays that look to seep into cracks and loose folds in hopes of peeling you apart and seeing what’s hidden. Lights are subway flickers and waiting room depressions and attention-seekers along barely-lit sidewalks at two in the morning.

The Dark is comforting, to Eren, at least. The Dark is means for an escape, a comfort in the form of blanket shelters and midnight walks through a park. The Dark has been Eren’s friend since he was born, and instead of being afraid of it, he chose to find solace in the pitch-black arms that surround him.

Why bother fighting what can’t be fought?

Eren hates crying under lights, but he hates crying in the dark even more.

At least lights allow for other people to find you; the Dark conceals you from everyone else, and sometimes, no one even knows you exist, for how can they know if they cannot see?

(No one ever found Eren.)

(He gave up wishing they would.)

 

* * *

 

Jean hates fake smiles.[  
](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/)

Fake smiles are betrayal, a mask, lies on upturned corners, and even on the most beautiful lips, they are not welcome. Fake smiles are billboard advertisements and cold business and threatening inflictions. There is nothing positive to be taken from something as insincere as faux warmth masked as politeness.

He doesn’t remember the last time he received a sincere smile. He doesn’t even remember the last time he gave anyone a genuine smile, but then again, Jean doesn’t remember the last time he met someone who deserved one.

Fake smiles are a false comfort when given, a dishonest swearing of unharm and lies lies lies. Disgust roils in Jean’s stomach like a churning vat of acid, and he’s become far too accustomed to pinpointing the fake from the real. Over time, he's fallen into the habit of disregarding politeness in favor of blunt truth; a smile, he knows, will get him nowhere, real or not.

Why bother piling on fabricated kindness that can never be genuine?

(No one’s ever made Jean feel like smiling.)

(He gave up wishing someone would.)

 

* * *

 

Jean finds Eren halfway between shadow and luminescence, much like how Eren finds Jean halfway between artificial and original.

It happens in the oddest of places -- a yarn shop, just off the corner of West 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Eren stands in front of cubbies of yarn, has threads of beautiful charcoal-colored wool looping through his fingers as he feels the texture, and he’s imagining his next project coming to life with it in his hands. The bell to the front door chimes to the tiny shop, and in walks a grumbling man covered in dustings of the falling snow from outside. He shakes off at the front entrance, loose flakes drifting from the tips of his hair to the welcome matt, and he hangs his coat on a small rack next to the doorframe. Eren pays him no mind as he continues feeling out the yarn in his hands. He ignores that it’s eight dollars a skein and continues running his fingers gently over the tufts of gray.

Jean has his sights set on a skein of yarn a few cubbies down from Eren; it’s a gorgeous deep blue with very small inklings of silver threaded through, and when he reaches it, he picks it up and smiles.

(Eren looks up and sees. It’s contagious when it’s real.)

A beanie has been the one thing Jean’s fingers have been itching to crochet, and with no yarn, that itch has become, of course, a need. And so he finds himself in this shop, grinning because the light weight of yarn in his hands feels good, natural, nostalgic. His fingers chase the hints of silver in the blue. He picks his head up to see the man to his left smiling down at his own skein.

(Jean thinks he could be quiet radiance. It’s warmth and blooming because it’s real.)

Eren looks up and catches Jean’s eye after looking at his yarn. He clears his throat, feeling a bit ashamed that he was caught, but not enough so to retreat back into the dark corner of the store. “That’s pretty. The yarn, I mean.”

There are voices telling Jean that his comments are fake, that his smile is fake, that he is fake just like everyone else. But another voice is telling him to look at the honesty; a relaxed posture, a softened face, a fondness for his own skein of yarn in his hands. Legitimate affection grants an equally truthful answer, he compromises. “Yeah it’s...different. Not many shops carry yarn like this.”

“I know. It’s hard to find good ones. But sometimes, shops you see out of the corner of your eye are better than those with flashing lights.”

Jean huffs. “It’s ridiculous.”

“You’re telling me.”

Jean stares back down at his blue skein, Eren gazing back at his gray, and he shakes his head. “It’s nice in here, though.”

“Yeah. It is.”

Outside, visibility becomes strained as twilight clouds continue to saturate. The falling snowflakes become heavier, thicker, and the sidewalks brace themselves and begin to hold the added weight.

Eren doesn’t get paid for another week, but he reasons he can live off his remaining groceries until then and buys enough skeins of that gray yarn and new knitting needles to begin making the softest blanket he's ever wanted. After his purchase, he takes one look outside and sighs, settling into the back of the store with his supplies until the snow stops. He sits in a bean bag chair in a dimly-lit corner, with his legs folded beneath him and his back against the wall for support, and he digs out his yarn and needles and knits for the sake of knitting.

Jean watches him buy his yarn and take his seat, and after seeing Eren look outside, he does the same. The trains back into Queens will be delayed until the snow lightens up, and he reasons getting home any time soon will be useless. Putting down the yarn in his hands and pulling on his jacket, Jean darts outside and into the coffee shop next door.

 

* * *

 

He is on his second row and 53rd stitch when a cup of tea appears in front of his knitting needles.

Eren looks up and sees a damp man, holding out a damp and steaming cup of what appears to be black tea.

“I have always lived by a quote that goes something like 'yarn’s best friend is a cup of tea,' and I couldn’t stand to see you sit back here by yourself without a cup,” Jean says, coat dripping frozen droplets that soak into the carpet at his feet. He has a plastic bag dangling from the crook of his elbow, and poking out from the top of it, Eren can see it’s the blue yarn with the small streak of silver he saw this man looking at earlier. He looks from the cup of tea to this man’s face, and blinks, because he’s not sure if his corner got a bit brighter, or if the lamps have increased their light.

(He doesn't feel like crawling back into the Dark.)

“Thank you,” he says, and accepts Jean’s offer of tea. He carefully settles the needles and yarn into his lap so the stitches don’t fall off, and gently sips. The liquid goes down and heat radiates through his stiff fingers from the cup. It’s strong and a bit sweet, but something he didn’t know he needed, and Eren doesn’t know he’s smiling, but Jean can see it, and he knows it’s true.

Eren removes one hand from the cup and pats the bean bag next to him. “Care to join?”

“Absolutely. No way in hell am I going out in that.” Jean goes to quickly hang up his coat and returns, plopping down into the seat and sighing. He sips from his own cup and carefully sets it on the ground before digging around in his plastic bag. Out comes a skein of the blue yarn and a crochet hook, and Eren is mesmerized as he watches Jean make a chain swiftly but elegantly. It’s a continued movement, and Eren doesn’t realize he’s forgotten his own project and watches Jean make the entire chain until he hears a chuckle and looks up to see Jean with one eyebrow raised.

“I’m guessing you only knit and don’t crochet, if you’re that hypnotized.”

“Well...yeah. I mean,” Eren mumbles, biting on his thumb nail. “My great-grandmother taught me when I was really young, and it just stuck. I guess I never bothered to learn anything else because I was so comfortable with this.”

“Hmm,” Jean hums to himself, looking down at the intertwining loops and curves of the chain he just made with new yarn he’s fascinated with. He holds out the loose string of yarn and the crochet hook to Eren and asks, “Would you like to learn?”

Eren isn’t sure of what to say. He knows yarn is precious to its owner, and to allow someone to learn using newly-purchased yarn is something of a sign of trust, or at least, he thinks so.

It feels like Eren has unknowingly revealed a small part of himself, pulled a bit of who he is out from the shadows and into the light. And he’s okay with that. It's rays aren't looking to pry him apart or search the dark cavities of his soul; it's an invitation, one he doesn't mind taking. He nods quietly and nervously holds out his hands to accept the foreign hook and yarn.

 

* * *

 

The snow doesn’t stop, but they don’t notice it anyway.

Eren’s ass has been hurting him for hours from the same position in the bean bag chair and Jean’s back is screaming at him to stop leaning over Eren, but neither are complaining.

Eren has somehow created two knots in Jean’s yarn, unraveled his chain ten times trying to get it completely right, and almost cracked the hook on the floor when he dropped it. Fortunately, Jean is patient and forgiving, and a good teacher, and he merely picks it up and puts it back in Eren’s hands to try again.

They’ve been there for hours, laughing about knitting puns and the spelling of the word ‘crochet’ and mocking the person who came up with it, who they assumed was probably French (“Those French and their ridiculous pronunciations. ‘S gotta be a french word, dude,” or so Eren argued.)

Their meeting is strange and fleeting and temporary, but it’s nice. It’s not something either men are used to; Eren is unfamiliar with shedding light on who he is, what he knows and how he thinks, and Jean isn’t used to such friendliness, goodwill, truthfulness.

Neither of them know it yet, but their fears coincide with the qualities they each have to offer to counter them. They will learn, outside of yarn shops and cups of tea and lackluster corners with spun yarn and yearnings, that those very fears are what bring out the best in each other. Those very fears are what show them what it means to find something precious, and they will visit that yarn shop years down the line and be grateful that shadows and fake smiles brought them to welcoming glows and honest love.

 


	8. discoveries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from jean and marco to eren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this with jean and marco in mind, discovering things about eren and how they feel about him and how they want to always be there for him. this is actually largely based on charlie's fic [this is mouse month](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2256255/chapters/4953489) because i have a lot of feelings about eren and i cry.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/bodtlings) // [tumblr](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/)

music boxes and rain patters  
and window pane droplet spatters  
are calming, but not as calming  
as hearing your breathing. a bombing  
in my chest is exploding heartbeats and  
raging pulses like sea storms; this bland  
life of mine has been infused with color thanks  
to you. you are river banks  
of rushing water and teardrop races  
along glass panes. your smile replaces  
sun beams and glows far  
brighter than any ray i've ever seen. one scar  
or twelve, you are beautiful. teach  
me to see as you see, reach  
for the stars as you do, for they  
are far prettier in your hands, anyway.


	9. little captivations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for [lex](https://twitter.com/zennhearts), with the idea that ejm revel in small captivations because they've taught each other to appreciate them.

there are more fascinating things  
than bicycle wheels and dragonfly wings,  
like the art of a child  
or a book defiled  
with the markings of an interested reader.  
there are concepts more captivating, like being a leader  
and brushing the ocean floors for the first time  
and all the lines in a poem that rhyme.  
there are many more fascinating things,  
but stop and admire those dragonfly wings  
sometime. watch them turn purple to green,  
to blue and gold, and as you lean  
against the patio railing, listen. those  
bicycle wheels keep turning and it goes  
forward and that child keeps pushing. chains  
will clink and gears will shift as he gains  
ground on the asphalt. you will  
see this, and as that child pedals over the hill  
and the dragonfly flies away, you  
will be fascinated and you will rue  
the day someone told you otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/) // [twitter](https://twitter.com/bodtlings)


	10. falling up

as cigarette ashes fall upwards and  
the sun comes up to reveal  
clouds that look like popcorn fleece,  
ankles cross on daring ledges of a balcony  
while embers continue to burn and thoughts begin  
to circle. 

jean leans his hand over the side railings,  
flicking ashes towards the ground only  
for them to fall upwards towards the balcony  
above him. “falling upwards”, jean thinks.  
what a weird phrase.  
how do you fall up?  
wouldn’t falling up just mean rising up?  
isn’t falling just for going down?  
falling up.  
jean feels like he’s been falling up  
his whole life. if falling up is a thing,  
an indescribable thing that can only be  
visualized by updrafts and floating  
ashes, than jean thinks, yeah,  
it could be possible. 

he goes insides and crosses his ankles  
over the daring edges of couch armrests.  
marco, he asks, can you fall up?  
no, is his response. falling is for going  
down. you fall to the floor. 

jean walks over to eren’s room and crosses his ankles  
over the daring edges of a mattress.  
eren, he asks, can you fall up?  
no, is his response. falling can’t be  
a sort of floating. you float up.   
jean goes back outside and crosses his ankles  
over the daring edges of their balcony.  
i can’t fall up, he thinks, but  
i can float. 

the clouds may look like popcorn fleece and  
sun rays through trees may create stained glass   
patterns on sidewalks and waves may look like  
shining crystals and  
his cigarette ashes may fall upwards  
(if that’s a thing),  
but jean doesn’t know what to do with them.  
what do you do with crystal waters that  
trickle from your fingertips  
and soft clouds  
you can never touch  
and art on pavements  
you can’t frame? 

floating cigarette ashes cannot be contained,  
but maybe they were never meant to be.   
jean puts out his cigarette, ends the  
cycle of flicking and falling upwards,  
and heads back inside, off of the balcony.


	11. an empty bed for a lost soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you lose someone, you always notice where they used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes so this prompt came from (the jar obvs) thinking about jean after marco dies and what he'd feel like noticing all the places marco was with him and all the spaces he occupied that are void now that he's gone. 
> 
> it might come off as something else so I'm going to tag *suicide undertones* so pls read with caution!

i just wanted to let you know  
that this morning when i looked up  
and saw that your bed was empty  
the first place i checked was over the balcony

thankfully, it was  
just as empty  
as your bed.

i just wanted to let you know  
that this morning when i was brushing my teeth  
and saw that the sink next to me was empty  
the first place i checked was the bathtub

thankfully, it was  
just as empty  
as the sink.

i just wanted to let you know  
that this morning when i walked outside  
and saw that the space next to me was empty  
the first place i checked was the middle of the road

thankfully, it was  
just as empty  
as it was beside me.

i just wanted to let you know  
that this afternoon when i ate lunch  
and saw that the chair across was empty  
the first place i checked was the kitchen

thankfully, it was  
just as empty  
as it was across from me.

i just wanted to let you know  
that tonight when i went to bed  
and saw that your bed was still empty  
i didn’t look up  
because i knew  
you were already there.

it’s still empty  
but not as empty  
as the hole in my heart  
you left behind.

 

 


End file.
